McDonnell-led Arkansas keeps racking up titles

That's quite a track record

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, June 10, 2004

AUSTIN - Is there a number that will say enough's enough for Arkansas track and field coach John McDonnell?

Obviously, it's not 38. That's the number of NCAA championships his program has won in indoor and outdoor track and cross country.

While more and more schools are dropping or reducing their track and field programs — the SMU men's team was among the latest victims — the Razorbacks keep on filling their trophy cases. And again they are one of the leading contenders during this week's NCAA Division I championships at the University of Texas' Myers Stadium.

"I hope so," McDonnell said. Rattling off the team's lengthy list of potential scorers, McDonnell said, "We have the people. We just have to do it."

But McDonnell was agitated about the absence of Alistair Cragg from the 5,000 meters based on mistaken advice from the referee at the Mideast Regional. That gentleman, John Chaplin, head men's coach of the USA 2000 Olympic team, advised that Cragg, already qualified in the NCAA 10,000, could pull out of the 5,000 because of a legitimate injury.

Wrong. Regardless of injury, an athlete must compete at the regional unless he or she already met the NCAA qualifying standard for that particular event. McDonnell's argument wasn't with Chaplin but with an NCAA committee that overruled him and also replaced him as the referee for this week's nationals.

"To me, it's a big power move by the NCAA, another black eye for the NCAA," McDonnell said. "In football, you've seen a touchdown (called) and then instant replay shows it's wrong. But the play stands, and they reprimand the official."

Most of Wednesday's action was postponed due to rain and lightning. NCAA officials will try to fit the rest of the championships into today, Friday and Saturday.

Young sprinters impressive

Another NCAA outdoor win would be McDonnell's 39th overall and his 11th outdoor title. When it was suggested that No. 40 would be a nice round number for McDonnell, 66 in July, to retire to his ranch in Oklahoma, he said, "If they keep messing with me, I may stick around for a long time. I'm getting fired up."

A good reason to stick around is the best sprint corps he's ever had, and it's young. Freshman Wallace Spearmon Jr., Tyson Guy and Omar Brown can score in both sprints and on the No. 6-ranked 400-meter relay team.

Guy, a junior, and Brown, a sophomore, followed assistant coach Lance Brauman to Arkansas from Barton County (Kan.) Community College. Spearman's story contains a few more plot twists. His father was recruited out of Chicago in the early 1980s by former assistant Doug Williamson.

"Doug had gone to a meet to watch Spearmon, and he called Mike Conley at the same meet," McDonnell said. "Mike went about 52 feet in the triple jump that day, and nobody had ever heard of him before we signed him."

Impact athlete

Conley arrived at Arkansas intending to double up in basketball and got permission from
Eddie Sutton
to walk on. After the first semester, Conley decided to concentrate on track and field. Conley went on to three Olympics, earning a gold in 1992 at Barcelona and a silver in 1984 at Los Angeles.

His collegiate career included nine NCAA championships in the long and triple jumps. Conley also led Arkansas to its first NCAA outdoor team title in 1985 in Austin, sweeping the long and triple jumps and running on the winning 400 relay.

In the most meaningful event of the first day, LSU's women led the 400 relay qualifying in 43.04 seconds in the rain. UCLA, considered a top contender for the women's championship, was edged out by six-thousandth's of a second for the final lane in the finals by TCU.